Exit strategies : policy options for countries seeking greater exchange rate flexibility / by a staff team led by Barry Eichengreen and Paul Masson with

Chile's average economic growth between 1990 and 1998 was above seven percent per year, more than double than in previous decades, and higher than in any other Latin American country in the same period. This paper assesses empirically the main hypotheses suggested in the literature about the factors underlying this rapid growth: good economic policies, good luck in the external sector, and the country's return to a democratic system of government. The statistical and quantitative results indicate that Chile's rapid growth during the 1990s was due to good policies and the improved political situation.

This is a Working Paper and the author(s) would welcome any comments on the present text. Citations should refer to a Working Paper of the International Monetary Fund. The views expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of the Fund.

While a standard academic presumption has been that wage indexation reduces the cost of disinflation, policymakers generally contend that wage indexing makes disinflation more difficult. To shed light on these views, this paper reexamines the effects of wage indexing on the output loss caused by money-based stabilization. It finds that the cost of disinflation with indexed wage contracts tends to be smaller than that with contracts that specify preset time-varying wages, but larger than that with contracts that specify fixed wages. Thus the academic and policymakers views can be both appropriate depending on the standard of reference.

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